Cord Blood Stem Cell Breakthroughs-Lung Disease-Kidney and Lupus

Umbilical cord blood from newborn babies can be used to produce embryonic-like cells that can potentially treat diseases and debilitating conditions.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been able to differentiate cord blood cells into a type of lung cell. These cells help to repair the airway in lungs after injury. This is a significant discovery because until now the use of brain stem cells was the only way to conduct viable research of this type. In the future, researchers might be able to examine cord blood from babies with lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis and develop better treatments. They will be able to work with umbilical cord blood cells to better understand lung development and to test new drugs.

Recent research indicates that mesenchymal stem cells obtained from full-term umbilical cord blood can potentially be used to repair tissue and develop bone and cartilage. As a result, patients can recover faster, thus preventing kidney complications arising from tissue damage. These findings bring new hope to those who suffer from acute kidney failure, a life threatening condition. Acute renal failure occurs when the kidneys are unable to get rid of waste and urine. Researchers in Italy treated mice with acute renal failure using cord blood mesenchymal stem cells and observed improved kidney functions. These preliminary findings show that cord blood stem cell research offers great potential in the treatment of acute kidney failure. However, more research is required to determine if humans would benefit from mesenchymal stem cells.

Lupus is a disease that affects more than 1.5 million Americans. It is an inflammatory disease that affects the skin, joints and kidneys. Lupus can be life threatening when it attacks major organs such as the kidneys. Stem cell transplant is used to treat patients with severe lupus. In a study of 50 patients who underwent stem cell transplant at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, 50 percent were free from the disease after five years. The overall survival rate is 84%. Stem cell transplantation offers a ray of hope to lupus sufferers who have failed conventional treatments.

Cord blood stem cell research overcomes most of the problems associated with embryonic stem cell research. The latter comes under much scrutiny and debate. It is hard to obtain sufficient stem cells from embryos and the right tissue type for a patient. Cord blood stem cells can be produced and there is more likelihood of finding the right tissue type given a birth rate of 100 million babies a year worldwide. Cord blood stem cell breakthroughs will undoubtedly escalate further research to find cure for what had previously been incurable diseases or debilitating conditions.

Cord blood stem cell transplant is becoming increasingly important for treatment of life-threatening diseases and debilitating conditions.

Umbilical cord blood stem cells are less prone to rejection than bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells. Get daily updated resources on umbilical cord blood at

By Alvin Toh

Does cord blood bank is proving to be valuable for the couples?

Author: jackson daren
Cord blood bank is an approach to use the umbilical cord blood for the use in future. During many interviews with the new parents there has always been only one main point of discussion. It is about cord blood banking. In the earlier time, after the birth placenta and umbilical cord were used to be discarded. Later on, it was found that umbilical cord plays major role in the formation of blood forming stem cells as a donor of bone marrow. Thus due to this reason umbilical cord blood has started to be collected and stored. Many of the public and private companies have begun the services of baby cord blood banking. The new parents receive this information either through the obstetricians or by mail from the private company.
In general, the cord blood storage is advertised as biological insurance. It is the insurance for the baby that needs stem cell transplantation. It can be because of malignancy, bone marrow transplantation or in case of other diseases affecting the metabolism during their life time. However, most of situations that is to be treated by the cord blood are already present in the cord blood stem cells of infant sometimes. Mostly parents give high preference to financial investment as compared to fact that cord blood banking cures the unborn child. They consider the cord blood banking cost as there is not any surety about investment. Cord blood banks are of two types –public or private.
In the private cord blood banking the organization stores the cord blood for which there are fixed charges. Blood is taken from a healthy child and is kept in store to transfer to any of the family member or child if they happen to need that in the future. It acts like an insurance cover. While public cord blood banks are run by government. It does not charge any fees for the collection and storage of cord blood. The core blood is kept in storage by maintaining the standards recognized at national level. Parents are thus highly motivated to donate the blood to public banks. After the donation the parents are told about any of the defect found in the blood.
One of the major benefits provided by private blood bank is one is kept updated about the current location or whether there is perfectly match between donor and recipient or not. In public banks when there is no cord blood already stored then one can get the stem cells. The benefit is that there is available large quantity of blood and so one can find the match out of huge collection. There are made registries by the doctor from where it gets easy to search for match. A research states that on comparing cord blood bank it was found that public cord blood bank should be first choice for the couples. Hence, these banks offer high value to investment.
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